I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The NCGOP doesn’t have a brand problem. It has a leadership (er, lack of) problem. Too many of the most party’s most prominent, public faces keep painting themselves into embarrassing or ethically-dubious situations.

These folks are human. They make bad decisions like the rest of us. But those bad decisions get harder to tolerate (especially when you came to power promising to clean up Raleigh), and take away so much attention from the party’s positive aspects.

Two years after then-House Rules Chairman Tim Moore’s legislation rescued a controversial south Durham mixed-use land project and boosted a high-end residential community next door, one of the developers took him on as his lawyer.

And two years after that, the same developer, Neal Hunter, gave Moore a legal services contract for a Durham-based pharmaceutical company Hunter had recently co-founded, paying him $40,000 for four months of work largely related to how federal tax law treated such startups.

Moore, a Cleveland County Republican who became House speaker in 2015, disclosed those details in an interview Friday about his private legal work. He was adamant he never mixed that work with his legislative duties.

But a state prosecutor told The News & Observer she has asked the State Bureau of Investigation to look into concerns about Moore’s work for Hunter and a separate case where Moore’s private legal work preceded controversial state legislation involving bail agents.

“Certainly, the allegations in both of these (cases), if they bear out to be true, seem to suggest a pattern of the use of public position for personal gain,” Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said.

She said her inquiry is not a criminal investigation.[…]

SBI involvement in something like this is pretty standard. Most DAs don’t have investigative resources in-house. And, of course, the SBI looking at you doesn’t mean you’re guilty.

There IS an election coming up. And Speaker Timmy is a high-profile target for Democrat partisans like Ms. Freeman.

Republicans DO need to start asking themselves: Where is the wise counsel whispering in the ears of NCGOP leaders with advice on how to avoid situations like this that LOOK so bad?

3 thoughts on “#ncga: Speaker Timmy getting inspected by the SBI”

While this may have some DEM push behind it, both cases appear to be the doer’s own volition. The bail monopoly case stank to high heaven. Reporter Dan Way wrote an article that shone the light on many involved, including Tom Apadaca, now a lobbyist but bondsman and soldier-hatchetman of Phil Berger, boy wonder and indiscriminate spender of campaign funds Justin Burr, and Jerry Dockham who has moved on to another private teat. Of note, GOP lawyer extraordinaire Phil Strach fought to keep the illegal and unconstitutional monopoly bill intact all the way to the Court of Appeals and review by the Supreme Court. The state Constitution held up. Of course back then the Court wasn’t as stacked as it is now, i.e. Phil Berger’s son who has never been a judge in a courtroom a day in his life. “Who’s your daddy?”

There isn’t even mention on here (at least I haven’t seen it) of the second “Lindberg Kidnapping” where the huge Durham donor held Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey hostage for 5k + 5k +250k to have his folks give a clean audit. In this case the FBI not the SBI is already issuing Fed Grand Jury subpoenas. That’s not good. We all know the Feds don’t waste their time, and as they say, a Grand Jury can indict a ham sandwich. I suspect some jail time lies ahead for some folks. Maybe Causey. Maybe Woodhouse. Maybe Donor Lindberg. Maybe all.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. If this much shenanigans has come to light, then we all know there is more to come now that ‘inquiring minds want to know”. There will be fallout, deeper investigations, and other power brokers implicated.

The Haymaker should have no trouble finding fodder to print for the next few weeks. You may have trouble trying to keep up.

Leave this man alone. He has done many great things for NC! With his leadership sweepstakes and fish table games are able to run in NC creating 1000’s of jobs. I personally don’t care he is trying to open a casino in kings mountain or lines up old girlfriends with state jobs, he’s helping N.C.